Ji-hwan Bae


Ji-hwan Bae is a South Korean professional baseball shortstop in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

Career

Born in July 1999, Bae attended Kyeongbuk High School in Daegu. He grew up as a fan of South Korean professional baseball, and began watching Major League Baseball when fellow South Korea native Shin-Soo Choo joined the Cleveland Indians. Bae soon became a fan of Hyun-jin Ryu, Jung-ho Kang, and José Altuve. Bae represented South Korea at the 2017 U-18 Baseball World Cup. During the tournament, he hit for a.286 batting average with five RBIs, six runs scored, six walks and two stolen bases. In his final high school baseball season, Bae appeared in 27 games, hit.474, and received the Lee Young-min Batting Award as South Korea's best hitter at the high school level. Bae was projected to be a first round pick in the 2017 KBO League draft.
On September 23, 2017, the Atlanta Braves announced the signing of Bae as a free agent. General manager John Coppolella claimed that Bae was the youngest Asian baseball player to sign with the Braves in nearly two decades. By joining the Braves, Bae would have become the second player since Kwon Kwang-min, who signed with the Chicago Cubs in 2015, to leave a South Korean high school directly for professional baseball in the United States. On November 21, 2017, Major League Baseball voided his contract with the Braves as a result of fraudulent contract negotiations. The New York Times reported that, although Bae had agreed to sign for $300,000, the Braves planned to pay him an additional $600,000 by reallocating money promised to other signees. The KBO League barred Bae from signing with any South Korean professional team for two years because he had skipped the KBO's draft to join the Braves organization, where he appeared with Atlanta's Florida Instructional League team. Bae was later signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates for a reported signing bonus of $1.25 million.

Controversy

In April 2019, Bae was questioned on charges of assaulting his girlfriend while in high school and disciplined for playing 30 minor league games.